第 六 章 · Chapter Six

Let us admit frankly that Canon Borda's jealousy was not altogether

unfounded: on his return from France, Fabrizio appeared to the eyes of

Contessa Pietranera like a handsome stranger whom she had known well in

days gone by. If he had spoken to her of love she would have loved him;

had she not already conceived, for his conduct and his person, a

passionate and, one might say, unbounded admiration? But Fabrizio

embraced her with such an effusion of innocent gratitude and

good-fellowship that she would have been horrified with herself had she

sought for any other sentiment in this almost filial friendship. "After

all," she said to herself, "some of my friends who knew me six years

ago, at Prince Eugène's court, may still find me good-looking and even

young, but for him I am a respectable woman--and, if the truth must be

told without any regard for my vanity, a woman of a certain age." The

Contessa was under an illusion as to the period of life at which she had

arrived, but it was not the illusion of common women. "Besides, at his

age," she went on, "boys are apt to exaggerate the ravages of time. A

man with more experience of life . . ."

The Contessa, who was pacing the floor of her drawing-room, stopped

before a mirror, then smiled. It must be explained that, some months

since, the heart of Signora Pietranera had been attacked in a serious

fashion, and by a singular personage. Shortly after Fabrizio's departure

for France, the Contessa who, without altogether admitting it to

herself, was already beginning to take a great interest in him, had

fallen into a profound melancholy. All her occupations seemed to her to

lack pleasure, and, if one may use the word, savour; she told herself

that Napoleon, wishing to secure the attachment of his Italian peoples,

would take Fabrizio as his aide-de-camp. "He is lost to me!" she

exclaimed, weeping, "I shall never see him again; he will write to me,

but what shall I be to him in ten years' time?"

_MELANCHOLY_

It was in this frame of mind that she made an expedition to Milan; she

hoped to find there some more immediate news of Napoleon, and, for all

she knew, incidentally news of Fabrizio. Without admitting it to

herself, this active soul was beginning to be very weary of the

monotonous life she was leading in the country. "It is a postponement of

death," she said to herself, "it is not life." Every day to see those

powdered heads, her brother, her nephew Ascanio, their footmen! What

would her excursions on the lake be without Fabrizio? Her sole

consolation was based on the ties of friendship that bound her to the

Marchesa. But for some time now this intimacy with Fabrizio's mother, a

woman older than herself and with no hope left in life, had begun to be

less attractive to her.

Such was the singular position in which Signora Pietranera was placed:

with Fabrizio away, she had little hope for the future. Her heart was in

need of consolation and novelty. On arriving in Milan she conceived a

passion for the fashionable opera; she would go and shut herself up

alone for hours on end, at the Scala, in the box of her old friend

General Scotti. The men whom she tried to meet in order to obtain news

of Napoleon and his army seemed to her vulgar and coarse. Going home,

she would improvise on her piano until three o'clock in the morning. One

evening, at the Scala, in the box of one of her friends to which she had

gone in search of news from France, she made the acquaintance of Conte

Mosca, a Minister from Parma; he was an agreeable man who spoke of

France and Napoleon in a way that gave her fresh reasons for hope or

fear. She returned to the same box the following evening; this

intelligent man reappeared and throughout the whole performance she

talked to him with enjoyment. Since Fabrizio's departure she had not

found any evening so lively. This man who amused her, Conte Mosca della

Rovere Sorezana, was at that time Minister of Police and Finance to that

famous Prince of Parma, Ernesto IV, so notorious for his severities,

which the Liberals of Milan called cruelties. Mosca might have been

forty or forty-five; he had strongly marked features, with no trace of

self-importance, and a simple and light-hearted manner which was greatly

in his favour; he would have looked very well indeed, if a whim on the

part of his Prince had not obliged him to wear powder on his hair as a

proof of his soundness in politics. As people have little fear of

wounding one another's vanity, they quickly arrive in Italy at a tone of

intimacy, and make personal observations. The antidote to this practice

is not to see the other person again if one's feelings have been hurt.

"Tell me, Conte, why do you powder your hair?" Signora Pietranera asked

him at their third meeting. "Powder! A man like you, attractive, still

young, who fought on our side in Spain!"

"Because, in the said Spain, I stole nothing, and one must live. I was

athirst for glory; a flattering word from the French General, Gouvion

Saint-Cyr, who commanded us, was everything to me then. When Napoleon

fell, it so happened that while I was eating up my patrimony in his

service, my father, a man of imagination, who pictured me as a general

already, had been building me a _palazzo_ at Parma. In 1813 I found that

my whole worldly wealth consisted of a huge _palazzo_, half-finished,

and a pension."

_A MINISTER_

"A pension: 3,500 francs, like my husband's?"

"Conte Pietranera commanded a Division. My pension, as a humble squadron

commander, has never been more than 800 francs, and even that has been

paid to me only since I became Minister of Finance."

As there was nobody else in the box but the lady of extremely liberal

views to whom it belonged, the conversation continued with the same

frankness. Conte Mosca, when questioned, spoke of his life at Parma. "In

Spain, under General Saint-Cyr, I faced the enemy's fire to win a cross

and a little glory besides, now I dress myself up like an actor in a

farce to win a great social position and a few thousand francs a year.

Once I had started on this sort of political chessboard, stung by the

insolence of my superiors, I determined to occupy one of the foremost

posts; I have reached it. But the happiest days of my life will always

be those which, now and again, I manage to spend at Milan; here, it

seems to me, there still survives the spirit of your Army of Italy."

The frankness, the _disinvoltura_ with which this Minister of so dreaded

a Prince spoke pricked the Contessa's curiosity; from his title she had

expected to find a pedant filled with self-importance; what she saw was

a man who was ashamed of the gravity of his position. Mosca had promised

to let her have all the news from France that he could collect; this was

a grave indiscretion at Milan, during the month that preceded Waterloo;

the question for Italy at that time was to be or not to be; everyone at

Milan was in a fever, a fever of hope or fear. Amid this universal

disturbance, the Contessa started to make inquiries about a man who

spoke thus lightly of so coveted a position, and one which, moreover,

was his sole means of livelihood.

Certain curious information of an interesting oddity was reported to

Signora Pietranera. "Conte Mosca della Rovere Sorezana," she was told,

"is on the point of becoming Prime Minister and declared favourite of

Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the absolute sovereign of Parma and one of the

wealthiest Princes in Europe to boot. The Conte would already have

attained to this exalted position if he had cared to shew a more solemn

face: they say that the Prince often lectures him on this failing.

"'What do my manners matter to Your Highness,' he answers boldly, 'so

long as I conduct his affairs?'

"This favourite's bed of roses," her informant went on, "is not without

its thorns. He has to please a Sovereign, a man of sense and

intelligence, no doubt, but a man who, since his accession to an

absolute throne, seems to have lost his head altogether and shews, for

instance, suspicions worthy of an old woman.

"Ernesto IV is courageous only in war. On the field of battle he has

been seen a score of times leading a column to the attack like a gallant

general; but after the death of his father Ernesto III, on his return to

his States, where, unfortunately for him, he possesses unlimited power,

he set to work to inveigh in the most senseless fashion against Liberals

and liberty. Presently he began to imagine that he was hated; finally,

in a moment of ill temper, he had two Liberals hanged, who may or may

not have been guilty, acting on the advice of a wretch called Rassi, a

sort of Minister of Justice.

"From that fatal moment the Prince's life changed; we find him tormented

by the strangest suspicions. He is not fifty, and fear has so reduced

him, if one may use the expression, that whenever he speaks of Jacobins,

and the plans of the Central Committee in Paris, his face becomes like

that of an old man of eighty; he relapses into the fantastic fears of

childhood. His favourite Rassi, the Fiscal General (or Chief Justice),

has no influence except through his master's fear; and whenever he is

alarmed for his own position, he makes haste to discover some fresh

conspiracy of the blackest and most fantastic order. Thirty rash fellows

have banded themselves together to read a number of the

_Constitutionnel_, Rassi declares them to be conspirators, and sends

them off to prison in that famous Citadel of Parma, the terror of the

whole of Lombardy. As it rises to a great height, a hundred and eighty

feet, people say, it is visible from a long way off in the middle of

that immense plain; and the physical outlines of the prison, of which

horrible things are reported, makes it the queen, governing by fear, of

the whole of that plain, which extends from Milan to Bologna."

"Would you believe," said another traveller to the Contessa, "that at

night, on the third floor of his palace, guarded by eighty sentinels who

every quarter of an hour cry aloud a whole sentence, Ernesto IV trembles

in his room. All the doors fastened with ten bolts, and the adjoining

rooms, above as well as below him, packed with soldiers, he is afraid of

the Jacobins. If a plank creaks in the floor, he snatches up his pistols

and imagines there is a Liberal hiding under his bed. At once all the

bells in the castle are set ringing, and an aide-de-camp goes to awaken

Conte Mosca. On reaching the castle, the Minister of Police takes good

care not to deny the existence of any conspiracy; on the contrary, alone

with the Prince, and armed to the teeth, he inspects every corner of the

rooms, looks under the beds, and, in a word, gives himself up to a whole

heap of ridiculous actions worthy of an old woman. All these precautions

would have seemed highly degrading to the Prince himself in the happy

days when he used to go to war and had never killed anyone except in

open combat. As he is a man of infinite spirit, he is ashamed of these

precautions; they seem to him ridiculous, even at the moment when he is

giving way to them, and the source of Conte Mosca's enormous reputation

is that he devotes all his skill to arranging that the Prince shall

never have occasion to blush in his presence. It is he, Mosca, who, in

his capacity as Minister of Police, insists upon looking under the

furniture, and, so people say in Parma, even in the cases in which the

musicians keep their double-basses. It is the Prince who objects to this

and teases his Minister over his excessive punctiliousness. 'It is a

challenge,' Conte Mosca replies; 'think of the satirical sonnets the

Jacobins would shower on us if we allowed you to be killed. It is not

only your life that we are defending, it is our honour.' But it appears

that the Prince is only half taken in by this, for if anyone in the town

should take it into his head to remark that they have passed a sleepless

night at the castle, the Grand Fiscal Rassi sends the impertinent fellow

to the citadel, and once in that lofty abode, and in the _fresh air_, as

they say at Parma, it is a miracle if anyone remembers the prisoner's

existence. It is because he is a soldier, and in Spain got away a score

of times, pistol in hand, from a tight corner, that the Prince prefers

Conte Mosca to Rassi, who is a great deal more flexible and baser. Those

unfortunate prisoners in the citadel are kept in the most rigorously

secret confinement, and all sorts of stories are told about them. The

Liberals assert that (and this, they say, is one of Rassi's ideas) the

gaolers and confessors are under orders to assure them, about once a

month, that one of them is being led out to die. That day the prisoners

have permission to climb to the platform of the huge tower, one hundred

and eighty feet high, and from there they see a procession file along

the plain with some spy who plays the part of a poor devil going to his

death."

These stories and a score of others of the same nature and of no less

authenticity keenly interested Signora Pietranera: on the following day

she asked Conte Mosca, whom she rallied briskly, for details. She found

him amusing, and maintained to him that at heart he was a monster

without knowing it. One day as he went back to his inn the Conte said to

himself: "Not only is this Contessa Pietranera a charming woman; but

when I spend the evening in her box I manage to forget certain things at

Parma the memory of which cuts me to the heart."--This Minister, in

spite of his frivolous air and his polished manners, was not blessed

with a soul of the French type; he could not _forget_ the things that

annoyed him. When there was a thorn in his pillow, he was obliged to

break it off and to blunt its point by repeated stabbings of his

throbbing limbs. (I must apologise for the last two sentences, which are

translated from the Italian.) On the morrow of this discovery, the Conte

found that, notwithstanding the business that had summoned him to Milan,

the day spun itself out to an enormous length; he could not stay in one

place, he wore out his carriage-horses. About six o'clock he mounted his

saddle-horse to ride to the _Corso_; he had some hope of meeting Signora

Pietranera there; seeing no sign of her, he remembered that at eight

o'clock the Scala Theatre opened; he entered it, and did not see ten

persons in that immense auditorium. He felt somewhat ashamed of himself

for being there. "Is it possible," he asked himself, "that at forty-five

and past I am committing follies at which a sub-lieutenant would blush?

Fortunately nobody suspects them." He fled, and tried to pass the time

by strolling up and down the attractive streets that surround the Scala.

They are lined with _caffè_ which at that hour are filled to overflowing

with people. Outside each of these _caffè_ crowds of curious idlers

perched on chairs in the middle of the street sip ices and criticise the

passers-by. The Conte was a passer-by of importance; at once he had the

pleasure of being recognised and addressed. Three or four importunate

persons of the kind that one cannot easily shake off seized this

opportunity to obtain an audience of so powerful a Minister. Two of them

handed him petitions; the third was content with pouring out a stream of

long-winded advice as to his political conduct.

"One does not sleep," he said to himself, "when one has such a brain;

one ought not to walk about when one is so powerful." He returned to the

theatre, where it occurred to him that he might take a box in the third

tier; from there his gaze could plunge, unnoticed by anyone, into the

box in the second tier in which he hoped to see the Contessa arrive. Two

full hours of waiting did not seem any too long to this lover; certain

of not being seen he abandoned himself joyfully to the full extent of

his folly. "Old age," he said to himself, "is not that, more than

anything else, the time when one is no longer capable of these delicious

puerilities?"

Finally the Contessa appeared. Armed with his glasses, he studied her

with rapture: "Young, brilliant, light as a bird," he said to himself,

"she is not twenty-five. Her beauty is the least of her charms: where

else could one find that soul always sincere, which never acts _with

prudence_, which abandons itself entirely to the impression of the

moment, which asks only to be carried away towards some new goal? I can

understand Conte Nani's foolish behaviour."

The Conte supplied himself with excellent reasons for behaving

foolishly, so long as he was thinking only of capturing the happiness

which he saw before his eyes. He did not find any quite so satisfactory

when he came to consider his age and the anxieties, sometimes of the

saddest nature, that burdened his life. "A man of ability, whose spirit

has been destroyed by fear, gives me a sumptuous life and plenty of

money to be his Minister; but were he to dismiss me to-morrow, I should

be left old and poor, that is to say everything that the world despises

most; there's a fine partner to offer the Contessa!" These thoughts were

too dark, he came back to Signora Pietranera; he could not tire of

gazing at her, and, to be able to think of her better, did not go down

to her box. "Her only reason for taking Nani, they tell me, was to put

that imbecile Limercati in his place when he could not be prevailed upon

to run a sword, or to hire someone else to stick a dagger into her

husband's murderer. I would fight for her twenty times over!" cried the

Conte in a transport of enthusiasm. Every moment he consulted the

theatre clock which, with illuminated figures upon a black background,

warned the audience every five minutes of the approach of the hour at

which it was permissible for them to visit a friend's box. The Conte

said to himself: "I cannot spend more than half an hour at the most in

the box, seeing that I have known her so short a time; if I stay longer,

I shall attract attention, and, thanks to my age and even more to this

accursed powder on my hair, I shall have all the bewitching allurements

of a Cassandra." But a sudden thought made up his mind once and for all.

"If she were to leave that box to pay someone else a visit, I should be

well rewarded for the avarice with which I am hoarding up this

pleasure." He rose to go down to the box in which he could see the

Contessa; all at once he found that he had lost almost all his desire to

present himself to her.

"Ah! this is really charming," he exclaimed with a smile at his own

expense, and coming to a halt on the staircase; "an impulse of genuine

shyness! It must be at least five and twenty years since an adventure of

this sort last came my way."

He entered the box, almost with an effort to control himself; and,

making the most, like a man of spirit, of the condition in which he

found himself, made no attempt to appear at ease, or to display his wit

by plunging into some entertaining story; he had the courage to be shy,

he employed his wits in letting his disturbance be apparent without

making himself ridiculous. "If she should take it amiss," he said to

himself, "I am lost for ever. What! Shy, with my hair covered with

powder, hair which, without the disguise of the powder, would be visibly

grey! But, after all, it is a fact; it cannot therefore be absurd unless

I exaggerate it or make a boast of it." The Contessa had spent so many

weary hours at the castle of Grianta, facing the powdered heads of her

brother and nephew, and of various politically _sound_ bores of the

neighbourhood, that it never occurred to her to give a thought to her

new adorer's style in hairdressing.

The Contessa's mind having this protection against the impulse to laugh

on his entry, she paid attention only to the news from France which

Mosca always had for her in detail, on coming to her box; no doubt he

used to invent it. As she discussed this news with him, she noticed this

evening the expression in his eyes, which was good and kindly.

"I can imagine," she said to him, "that at Parma, among your slaves, you

will not wear that friendly expression; it would ruin everything and

give them some hope of not being hanged!"

The entire absence of any sense of self-importance in a man who passed

as the first diplomat in Italy, seemed strange to the Contessa; she even

found a certain charm in it. Moreover, as he talked well and with

warmth, she was not at all displeased that he should have thought fit to

take upon himself for one evening, without ulterior consequences, the

part of squire of dames.

It was a great step forward, and highly dangerous; fortunately for the

Minister, who, at Parma, never met a cruel fair, the Contessa had

arrived from Grianta only a few days before: her mind was still stiff

with the boredom of a country life. She had almost forgotten how to make

fun; and all those things that appertain to a light and elegant way of

living had assumed in her eyes as it were a tint of novelty which made

them sacred; she was in no mood to laugh at anyone, even a lover of

forty-five, and shy. A week later, the Conte's temerity might have met

with a very different sort of welcome.

At the Scala, it is not usual to prolong for more than twenty minutes or

so these little visits to one's friends' boxes; the Conte spent the

whole evening in the box in which he had been so fortunate as to meet

Signora Pietranera. "She is a woman," he said to himself, "who revives

in me all the follies of my youth!" But he was well aware of the danger.

"Will my position as an all-powerful Bashaw in a place forty leagues

away induce her to pardon me this stupid behaviour? I get so bored at

Parma!" Meanwhile, every quarter of an hour, he registered a mental vow

to get up and go.

"I must explain to you, Signora," he said to the Contessa with a laugh,

"that at Parma I am bored to death, and I ought to be allowed to drink

my fill of pleasure when the cup comes my way. So, without involving you

in anything and simply for this evening, permit me to play the part of

lover in your company. Alas, in a few days I shall be far away from this

box which makes me forget every care and indeed, you will say, every

convention."

A week after this monstrous visit to the Contessa's box, and after a

series of minor incidents the narration of which here would perhaps seem

tedious, Conte Mosca was absolutely mad with love, and the Contessa had

already begun to think that his age need offer no objection if the

suitor proved attractive in other ways. They had reached this stage when

Mosca was recalled by a courier from Parma. One would have said that his

Prince was afraid to be left alone. The Contessa returned to Grianta;

her imagination no longer serving to adorn that lovely spot, it appeared

to her a desert. "Should I be attached to this man?" she asked herself.

Mosca wrote to her, and had not to play a part; absence had relieved him

of the source of all his anxious thoughts; his letters were amusing,

and, by a little piece of eccentricity which was not taken amiss, to

escape the comments of the Marchese del Dongo, who did not like having

to pay for the carriage of letters, he used to send couriers who would

post his at Como or Lecco or Varese or some other of those charming

little places on the shores of the lake. This was done with the idea

that the courier might be employed to take back her replies. The move

was successful.

Soon the days when the couriers came were events in the Contessa's life;

these couriers brought her flowers, fruit, little presents of no value,

which amused her, however, and her sister-in-law as well. Her memory of

the Conte was blended with her idea of his great power; the Contessa had

become curious to know everything that people said of him; the Liberals

themselves paid a tribute to his talents.

The principal source of the Conte's reputation for evil was that he

passed as the head of the _Ultra_ Party at the Court of Parma, while the

Liberal Party had at its head an intriguing woman capable of anything,

even of succeeding, the Marchesa Raversi, who was immensely rich. The

Prince made a great point of not discouraging that one of the two

Parties which happened not to be in power; he knew quite well that he

himself would always be the master, even with a Ministry formed in

Signora Raversi's drawing-room. Endless details of these intrigues were

reported at Grianta. The bodily absence of Mosca, whom everyone

described as a Minister of supreme talent and a man of action, made it

possible not to think any more of his powdered head, a symbol of

everything that is dull and sad; it was a detail of no consequence, one

of the obligations of the court at which, moreover, he was playing so

distinguished a part. "It is a ridiculous thing, a court," said the

Contessa to the Marchesa, "but it is amusing; it is a game that it is

interesting to play, but one must agree to the rules. Who ever thought

of protesting against the absurdity of the rules of piquet? And yet,

once you are accustomed to the rules, it is delightful to beat your

adversary with _repique_ and _capot_."

_MILAN_

The Contessa often thought about the writer of these entertaining

letters; the days on which she received them were delightful to her; she

would take her boat and go to read them in one of the charming spots by

the lake, the Pliniana, Belan, the wood of the Sfrondata. These letters

seemed to console her to some extent for Fabrizio's absence. She could

not, at all events, refuse to allow the Conte to be deeply in love; a

month had not passed before she was thinking of him with tender

affection. For his part, Conte Mosca was almost sincere when he offered

to hand in his resignation, to leave the Ministry and to come and spend

the rest of his life with her at Milan or elsewhere. "I have 400,000

francs," he added, "which will always bring us in an income of

15,000."--"A box at the play again, horses, everything," thought the

Contessa; they were pleasant dreams. The sublime beauty of the different

views of the Lake of Como began to charm her once more. She went down to

dream by its shores of this return to a brilliant and distinctive life,

which, most unexpectedly, seemed to be coming within the bounds of

possibility. She saw herself on the Corso, at Milan, happy and gay as in

the days of the Viceroy: "Youth, or at any rate a life of action would

begin again for me."

Sometimes her ardent imagination concealed things from her, but never

did she have those deliberate illusions which cowardice induces. She was

above all things a woman who was honest with herself. "If I am a little

too old to be doing foolish things," she said to herself, "envy, which

creates illusions as love does, may poison my stay in Milan for me.

After my husband's death, my noble poverty was a success, as was my

refusal of two vast fortunes. My poor little Conte Mosca had not a

twentieth part of the opulence that was cast at my feet by those two

worms, Limercati and Nani. The meagre widow's pension which I had to

struggle to obtain, the dismissal of my servants, which made some

sensation, the little fifth floor room which brought a score of

carriages to the door, all went to form at the time a striking

spectacle. But I shall have unpleasant moments, however skilfully I may

handle things, if, never possessing any fortune beyond my widow's

pension, I go back to live at Milan on the snug little middle-class

comfort which we can secure with the 15,000 lire that Mosca will have

left after he retires. One strong objection, out of which envy will

forge a terrible weapon, is that the Conte, although separated long ago

from his wife, is still a married man. This separation is known at

Parma, but at Milan it will come as news, and they will put it down to

me. So, my dear Scala, my divine Lake of Como, adieu! adieu!"

In spite of all these forebodings, if the Contessa had had the smallest

income of her own she would have accepted Mosca's offer to resign his

office. She regarded herself as a middle-aged woman, and the idea of the

court alarmed her; but what will appear in the highest degree improbable

on this side of the Alps is that the Conte would have handed in that

resignation gladly. So, at least, he managed to make his friend believe.

In all his letters he implored, with an ever increasing frenzy, a second

interview at Milan; it was granted him. "To swear that I feel an insane

passion for you," the Contessa said to him one day at Milan, "would be a

lie; I should be only too glad to love to-day at thirty odd as I used to

love at two-and-twenty! But I have seen so many things decay that I had

imagined to be eternal! I have the most tender regard for you, I place

an unbounded confidence in you, and of all the men I know, you are the

one I like best." The Contessa believed herself to be perfectly sincere;

and yet, in the final clause, this declaration embodied a tiny

falsehood. Fabrizio, perhaps, had he chosen, might have triumphed over

every rival in her heart. But Fabrizio was nothing more than a boy in

Conte Mosca's eyes: he himself reached Milan three days after the young

hothead's departure for Novara, and he hastened to intercede on his

behalf with Barone Binder. The Conte considered that his exile was now

irrevocable.

_A RECENT CREATION_

He had not come to Milan alone; he had in his carriage the Duca

Sanseverina-Taxis, a handsome little old man of sixty-eight,

dapple-grey, very polished, very neat, immensely rich but not quite as

noble as he ought to have been. It was his grandfather, only, who had

amassed millions from the office of Farmer General of the Revenues of

the State of Parma. His father had had himself made Ambassador of the

Prince of Parma to the Court of ----, by advancing the following

argument: "Your Highness allots 30,000 francs to his Representative at

the Court of ----, where he cuts an extremely modest figure. Should Your

Highness deign to appoint me to the post, I will accept 6,000 francs as

salary. My expenditure at the Court of ---- will never fall below

100,000 francs a year, and my agent will pay over 20,000 francs every

year to the Treasurer for Foreign Affairs at Parma. With that sum they

can attach to me whatever Secretary of Embassy they choose, and I shall

shew no curiosity to inquire into diplomatic secrets, if there are any.

My object is to shed lustre on my house, which is still a new one, and

to give it the distinction of having filled one of the great public

offices."

The present Duca, this Ambassador's son and heir, had made the stupid

mistake of coming out as a Semi-Liberal, and for the last two years had

been in despair. In Napoleon's time, he had lost two or three millions

owing to his obstinacy in remaining abroad, and even now, after the

re-establishment of order in Europe, he had not managed to secure a

certain Grand Cordon which adorned the portrait of his father. The want

of this Cordon was killing him by inches.

At the degree of intimacy which in Italy follows love, there was no

longer any obstacle in the nature of vanity between the lovers. It was

therefore with the most perfect simplicity that Mosca said to the woman

he adored:

"I have two or three plans of conduct to offer you, all pretty well

thought out; I have been thinking of nothing else for the last three

months.

"First: I hand in my resignation, and we retire to a quiet life at Milan

or Florence or Naples or wherever you please. We have an income of

15,000 francs, apart from the Prince's generosity, which will continue

for some time, more or less.

"Secondly: You condescend to come to the place in which I have some

authority; you buy a property, Sacca, for example, a charming house in

the middle of a forest, commanding the valley of the Po; you can have

the contract signed within a week from now. The Prince then attaches you

to his court. But here I can see an immense objection. You will be well

received at court; no one would think of refusing, with me there;

besides, the Princess imagines she is unhappy, and I have recently

rendered her certain services with an eye to your future. But I must

remind you of one paramount objection: the Prince is a bigoted

churchman, and, as you already know, ill luck will have it that I am a

married man. From which will arise a million minor unpleasantnesses. You

are a widow; it is a fine title which would have to be exchanged for

another, and this brings me to my third proposal.

_THE DUCA SANSEVERINA_

"One might find a new husband who would not be a nuisance. But first of

all he would have to be considerably advanced in years, for why should

you deny me the hope of some day succeeding him? Very well, I have made

this curious arrangement with the Duca Sanseverina-Taxis, who, of

course, does not know the name of his future Duchessa. He knows only

that she will make him an Ambassador and will procure him the Grand

Cordon which his father had and the lack of which makes him the most

unhappy of mortals. Apart from this, the Duca is by no means an absolute

idiot; he gets his clothes and wigs from Paris. He is not in the least

the sort of man who would do anything _deliberately_ mean, he seriously

believes that honour consists in his having a Cordon, and he is ashamed

of his riches. He came to me a year ago proposing to found a hospital,

in order to get this Cordon; I laughed at him then, but he did not by

any means laugh at me when I made him a proposal of marriage; my first

condition was, you can understand, that he must never set foot again in

Parma."

"But do you know that what you are proposing is highly immoral?" said

the Contessa.

"No more immoral than everything else that is done at our court and a

score of others. Absolute Power has this advantage, that it sanctifies

everything in the eyes of the public: what harm can there be in a thing

that nobody notices? Our policy for the next twenty years is going to

consist in fear of the Jacobins--and such fear, too! Every year, we

shall fancy ourselves on the eve of '93. You will hear, I hope, the fine

speeches I make on the subject at my receptions! They are beautiful!

Everything that can in any way reduce this fear will be _supremely

moral_ in the eyes of the nobles and the bigots. And you see, at Parma,

everyone who is not either a noble or a bigot is in prison, or is

packing up to go there; you may be quite sure that this marriage will

not be thought odd among us until the day on which I am disgraced. This

arrangement involves no dishonesty towards anyone; that is the essential

thing, it seems to me. The Prince, on whose favour we are trading, has

placed only one condition on his consent, which is that the future

Duchessa shall be of noble birth. Last year my office, all told, brought

me in 107,000 francs; my total income would therefore be 122,000; I

invested 20,000 at Lyons. Very well, choose for yourself; either, a life

of luxury based on our having 122,000 francs to spend, which, at Parma,

go as far as at least 400,000 at Milan, but with this marriage which

will give you the name of a passable man on whom you will never set eyes

after you leave the altar; or else the simple middle-class existence on

15,000 francs at Florence or Naples, for I am of your opinion, you have

been too much admired at Milan; we should be persecuted here by envy,

which might perhaps succeed in souring our tempers. Our grand life at

Parma will, I hope, have some touches of novelty, even in your eyes

which have seen the court of Prince Eugène; you would be wise to try it

before shutting the door on it for ever. Do not think that I am

seeking to influence your opinion. As for me, my mind is quite made up:

I would rather live on a fourth floor with you than continue that grand

life by myself."

_A MATCH_

The possibility of this strange marriage was debated by the loving

couple every day. The Contessa saw the Duca Sanseverina-Taxis at the

Scala Ball, and thought him highly presentable. In one of their final

conversations, Mosca summed up his proposals in the following words: "We

must take some decisive action if we wish to spend the rest of our lives

in an enjoyable fashion and not grow old before our time. The Prince has

given his approval; Sanseverina is a person who might easily be worse;

he possesses the finest _palazzo_ in Parma, and a boundless fortune; he

is sixty-eight, and has an insane passion for the Grand Cordon; but

there is one great stain on his character: he once paid 10,000 francs

for a bust of Napoleon by Canova. His second sin, which will be the

death of him if you do not come to his rescue, is that he lent 25

napoleons to Ferrante Palla, a lunatic of our country but also something

of a genius, whom we have since sentenced to death, fortunately in his

absence. This Ferrante has written a couple of hundred lines in his time

which are like nothing in the world; I will repeat them to you, they are

as fine as Dante. The Prince then sends Sanseverina to the Court of

----, he marries you on the day of his departure, and in the second year

of his stay abroad, which he calls an Embassy, he receives the Grand

Cordon of the ----, without which he cannot live. You will have in him a

brother who will give you no trouble at all; he signs all the papers I

require in advance, and besides you will see nothing of him, or as

little as you choose. He asks for nothing better than never to shew his

face at Parma, where his grandfather the tax-gatherer and his own

profession of Liberalism stand in his way. Rassi, our hangman, makes out

that the Duca was a secret subscriber to the _Constitutionnel_ through

Ferrante Palla the poet, and this slander was for a long time a serious

obstacle in the way of the Prince's consent."

Why should the historian who follows faithfully all the most trivial

details of the story that has been told him be held responsible? Is it

his fault if his characters, led astray by passions which he,

unfortunately for himself, in no way shares, descend to conduct that is

profoundly immoral? It is true that things of this sort are no longer

done in a country where the sole passion that has outlived all the rest

is that for money, as an excuse for vanity.

Three months after the events we have just related, the Duchessa

Sanseverina-Taxis astonished the court of Parma by her easy affability

and the noble serenity of her mind; her house was beyond comparison the

most attractive in the town. This was what Conte Mosca had promised his

master. Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the Reigning Prince, and the Princess his

Consort, to whom she was presented by two of the greatest ladies in the

land, gave her a most marked welcome. The Duchessa was curious to see

this Prince, master of the destiny of the man she loved, she was anxious

to please him, and in this was more than successful. She found a man of

tall stature but inclined to stoutness; his hair, his moustache, his

enormous whiskers were of a fine gold, according to his courtiers;

elsewhere they had provoked, by their faded tint, the ignoble word

_flaxen_. From the middle of a plump face there projected to no distance

at all a tiny nose that was almost feminine. But the Duchessa observed

that, in order to notice all these points of ugliness, one had first to

attempt to catalogue the Prince's features separately. Taken as a whole,

he had the air of a man of sense and of firm character. His carriage,

his way of holding himself were by no means devoid of majesty, but often

he sought to impress the person he was addressing; at such times he grew

embarrassed himself, and fell into an almost continuous swaying motion

from one leg to the other. For the rest, Ernesto IV had a piercing and

commanding gaze; his gestures with his arms had nobility, and his speech

was at once measured and concise.

Mosca had warned the Duchessa that the Prince had, in the large cabinet

in which he gave audiences, a full length portrait of Louis XIV, and a

very fine table by Scagliola of Florence. She found the imitation

striking; evidently he sought to copy the gaze and the noble utterance

of Louis XIV, and he leaned upon the Scagliola table so as to give

himself the pose of Joseph II. He sat down as soon as he had uttered his

greeting to the Duchessa, to give her an opportunity to make use of the

_tabouret_ befitting her rank. At this court, duchesses, princesses, and

the wives of Grandees of Spain alone have the right to sit; other women

wait until the Prince or Princess invites them; and, to mark the

difference in rank, these August Personages always take care to allow a

short interval to elapse before inviting the ladies who are not

duchesses to be seated. The Duchessa found that at certain moments the

imitation of Louis XIV was a little too strongly marked in the Prince;

for instance, in his way of smiling good-naturedly and throwing back his

head.

_THE COURT OF PARMA_

Ernesto IV wore an evening coat in the latest fashion, that had come

from Paris; every month he had sent to him from that city, which he

abhorred, an evening coat, a frock coat, and a hat. But by an odd blend

of costume, on the day on which the Duchessa was received he had put on

red breeches, silk stockings and very close-fitting shoes, models for

which might be found in the portraits of Joseph II.

He received Signora Sanseverina graciously; the things he said to her

were shrewd and witty; but she saw quite plainly that there was no

superfluity of warmth in his reception of her.--"Do you know why?" said

Conte Mosca on her return from the audience, "it is because Milan is a

larger and finer city than Parma. He was afraid, had he given you the

welcome that I expected and he himself had led me to hope, of seeming

like a provincial in ecstasies before the charms of a beautiful lady who

has come down from the capital. No doubt, too, he is still upset by a

detail which I hardly dare mention to you; the Prince sees at his court

no woman who can vie with you in _beauty_. Yesterday evening, when he

retired to bed, that was his sole topic of conversation with Pernice,

his principal valet, who is good enough to confide in me. I foresee a

little revolution in etiquette; my chief enemy at this court is a fool

who goes by the name of General Fabio Conti. Just imagine a creature who

has been on active service for perhaps one day in his life, and sets out

from that to copy the bearing of Frederick the Great. In addition to

which, he aims also at copying the noble affability of General La

Fayette, and that because he is the leader, here, of the Liberal Party

(God knows what sort of Liberals!)."

"I know your Fabio Conti," said the Duchessa; "I had a good view of him

once near Como; he was quarrelling with the police." She related the

little adventure which the reader may perhaps remember.

"You will learn one day, Signora, if your mind ever succeeds in

penetrating the intricacies of our etiquette, that young ladies do not

appear at court here until after their marriage. At the same time, the

Prince has, for the superiority of his city of Parma over all others, a

patriotism so ardent that I would wager that he will find some way of

having little Clelia Conti, our La Fayette's daughter, presented to him.

She is charming, upon my soul she is; and was still reckoned, a week

ago, the best-looking person in the States of the Prince.

"I do not know," the Conte went on, "whether the horrors that the

enemies of our Sovereign have disseminated against him, have reached the

castle of Grianta; they make him out a monster, an ogre. The truth is

that Ernesto IV was full of dear little virtues, and one may add that,

had he been invulnerable like Achilles, he would have continued to be

the model of a potentate. But in a moment of boredom and anger, and also

a little in imitation of Louis XIV cutting off the head of some hero or

other of the Fronde, who was discovered living in peaceful solitude on a

plot of land near Versailles, fifty years after the Fronde, one fine day

Ernesto IV had two Liberals hanged. It seems that these rash fellows

used to meet on fixed days to speak evil of the Prince and address

ardent prayers to heaven that the plague might visit Parma and deliver

them from the tyrant. The word _tyrant_ was proved. Rassi called this

conspiracy; he had them sentenced to death, and the execution of one of

them, Conte L----, was atrocious. All this happened before my time.

Since that fatal hour," the Conte went on, lowering his voice, "the

Prince has been subject to fits of panic _unworthy of a man_, but these

are the sole source of the favour that I enjoy. But for this royal fear,

mine would be a kind of merit too abrupt, too harsh for this court,

where idiocy runs rampant. Would you believe that the Prince looks under

the beds in his room before going to sleep, and spends a million, which

at Parma is the equivalent of four millions at Milan, to have a good

police force; and you see before you, Signora Duchessa, the Chief of

that terrible Police. By the police, that is to say by fear, I have

become Minister of War and Finance; and as the Minister of the Interior

is my nominal chief, in so far as he has the police under his

jurisdiction, I have had that portfolio given to Conte Zurla-Contarini,

an imbecile who is a glutton for work and gives himself the pleasure of

writing eighty letters a day. I received one only this morning on which

Conte Zurla-Contarini has had the satisfaction of writing with his own

hand the number 20,715."

The Duchessa Sanseverina was presented to the melancholy Princess of

Parma, Clara-Paolina, who, because her husband had a mistress (quite an

attractive woman, the Marchesa Balbi), imagined herself to be the most

unhappy person in the universe, a belief which had made her perhaps the

most trying. The Duchessa found a very tall and very thin woman, who was

not thirty-six and appeared fifty. A symmetrical and noble face might

have passed as beautiful, though somewhat spoiled by the large round

eyes which could barely see, if the Princess had not herself abandoned

every attempt at beauty. She received the Duchessa with a shyness so

marked that certain courtiers, enemies of Conte Mosca, ventured to say

that the Princess looked like the woman who was being presented and the

Duchessa like the sovereign. The Duchessa, surprised and almost

disconcerted, could find no language that would put her in a place

inferior to that which the Princess assumed for herself. To restore some

self-possession to this poor Princess, who at heart was not wanting in

intelligence, the Duchessa could think of nothing better than to begin,

and keep going, a long dissertation on botany. The Princess was really

learned in this science; she had some very fine hothouses with

quantities of tropical plants. The Duchessa, while seeking simply for a

way out of a difficult position, made a lifelong conquest of Princess

Clara-Paolina, who, from the shy and speechless creature that she had

been at the beginning of the audience, found herself towards the end so

much at her ease, that, in defiance of all the rules of etiquette, this

first audience lasted for no less than an hour and a quarter. Next day,

the Duchessa sent out to purchase some exotic plants, and posed as a

great lover of botany.

The Princess spent all her time with the venerable Father Landriani,

Archbishop of Parma, a man of learning, a man of intelligence even, and

a perfectly honest man, but one who presented a singular spectacle when

he was seated in his chair of crimson velvet (it was the privilege of

his office) opposite the armchair of the Princess, surrounded by her

maids of honour and her two ladies _of company_. The old prelate, with his

flowing white locks, was even more timid, were such a thing possible,

than the Princess; they saw one another every day, and every audience

began with a silence that lasted fully a quarter of an hour. To such a

state had they come that the Contessa Alvizi, one of the ladies of

company, had become a sort of favourite, because she possessed the art

of encouraging them to talk and so breaking the silence.

To end the series of presentations, the Duchessa was admitted to the

presence of H.S.H. the Crown Prince, a personage of taller stature than

his father and more timid than his mother. He was learned in mineralogy,

and was sixteen years old. He blushed excessively on seeing the Duchessa

come in, and was so put off his balance that he could not think of a

word to say to that beautiful lady. He was a fine-looking young man, and

spent his life in the woods, hammer in hand. At the moment when the

Duchessa rose to bring this silent audience to an end:

"My God! Signora, how pretty you are!" exclaimed the Crown Prince; a

remark which was not considered to be in too bad taste by the lady

presented.

The Marchesa Balbi, a young woman of five-and-twenty, might still have

passed for the most perfect type of _leggiadria italiana_, two or three

years before the arrival of the Duchessa Sanseverina at Parma. As it

was, she had still the finest eyes in the world and the most charming

airs, but, viewed close at hand, her skin was netted with countless fine

little wrinkles which made the Marchesa look like a young grandmother.

Seen from a certain distance, in the theatre for instance, in her box,

she was still a beauty, and the people in the pit thought that the

Prince shewed excellent taste. He spent every evening with the Marchesa

Balbi, but often without opening his lips, and the boredom she saw on

the Prince's face had made this poor woman decline into an extraordinary

thinness. She laid claim to an unlimited subtlety, and was always

smiling a bitter smile; she had the prettiest teeth in the world, and in

season and out, having little or no sense, would attempt by an ironical

smile to give some hidden meaning to her words. Conte Mosca said that it

was these continual smiles, while inwardly she was yawning, that gave

her all her wrinkles. The Balbi had a finger in every pie, and the State

never made a contract for 1,000 francs without there being some little

_ricordo_ (this was the polite expression at Parma) for the Marchesa.

Common report would have it that she had invested six millions in

England, but her fortune, which indeed was of recent origin, did not in

reality amount to 1,500,000 francs. It was to be out of reach of her

stratagems, and to have her dependent upon himself, that Conte Mosca had

made himself Minister of Finance. The Marchesa's sole passion was fear

disguised in sordid avarice: "_I shall die on straw_!" she used

occasionally to say to the Prince, who was shocked by such a remark. The

Duchessa noticed that the ante-room, resplendent with gilding, of the

Balbi's _palazzo_, was lighted by a single candle which guttered on a

priceless marble table, and that the doors of her drawing-room were

blackened by the footmen's fingers.

"She received me," the Duchessa told her lover, "as though she expected

me to offer her a gratuity of 50 francs."

The course of the Duchessa's successes was slightly interrupted by the

reception given her by the shrewdest woman of the court, the celebrated

Marchesa Raversi, a consummate intriguer who had established herself at

the head of the party opposed to that of Conte Mosca. She was anxious to

overthrow him, all the more so in the last few months, since she was the

niece of the Duca Sanseverina, and was afraid of seeing her prospects

impaired by the charms of his new Duchessa. "The Raversi is by no means

a woman to be ignored," the Conte told his mistress; "I regard her as so

far capable of sticking at nothing that I separated from my wife solely

because she insisted on taking as her lover Cavaliere Bentivoglio, a

friend of the Raversi." This lady, a tall virago with very dark hair,

remarkable for the diamonds which she wore all day, and the rouge with

which she covered her cheeks, had declared herself in advance the

Duchessa's enemy, and when she received her in her own house made it her

business to open hostilities. The Duca Sanseverina, in the letters he

wrote from ----, appeared so delighted with his Embassy, and above all,

with the prospect of the Grand Cordon, that his family were afraid of

his leaving part of his fortune to his wife, whom he loaded with little

presents. The Raversi, although definitely ugly, had for a lover Conte

Baldi, the handsomest man at court; generally speaking, she was

successful in all her undertakings.

The Duchessa lived in the greatest style imaginable. The _palazzo_

Sanseverina had always been one of the most magnificent in the city of

Parma, and the Duca, to celebrate the occasion of his Embassy and his

future Grand Cordon, was spending enormous sums upon its decoration; the

Duchessa directed the work in person.

The Conte had guessed aright; a few days after the presentation of the

Duchessa, young Clelia Conti came to court; she had been made a

Canoness. In order to parry the blow which this favour might be thought

to have struck at the Conte's influence, the Duchessa gave a party, on

the pretext of throwing open the new garden of her _palazzo_, and by the

exercise of her most charming manners made Clelia, whom she called her

young friend of the Lake of Como, the queen of the evening. Her monogram

was displayed, as though by accident, upon the principal transparencies.

The young Clelia, although slightly pensive, was pleasant in the way in

which she spoke of the little adventure by the Lake, and of her warm

gratitude. She was said to be deeply religious and very fond of

solitude. "I would wager," said the Conte, "that she has enough sense to

be ashamed of her father." The Duchessa made a friend of this girl; she

felt attracted towards her, she did not wish to appear jealous, and

included her in all her pleasure parties; after all, her plan was to

seek to diminish all the enmities of which the Conte was the object.

Everything smiled on the Duchessa; she was amused by this court

existence where a sudden storm is always to be feared; she felt as

though she were beginning life over again. She was tenderly attached to

the Conte, who was literally mad with happiness. This pleasing situation

had bred in him an absolute impassivity towards everything in which only

his professional interests were concerned. And so, barely two months

after the Duchessa's arrival, he obtained the patent and honours of

Prime Minister, honours which come very near to those paid to the

Sovereign himself. The Conte had complete control of his master's will;

they had a proof of this at Parma by which everyone was impressed.

To the southeast, and within ten minutes of the town rises that famous

citadel so renowned throughout Italy, the main tower of which stands one

hundred and eighty feet high and is visible from so far. This tower,

constructed on the model of Hadrian's Tomb, at Rome, by the Farnese,

grandsons of Paul III, in the first half of the sixteenth century, is so

large in diameter that on the platform in which it ends it has been

possible to build a _palazzo_ for the governor of the citadel and a new

prison called the Farnese tower. This prison, erected in honour of the

eldest son of Ranuccio-Ernesto II, who had become the accepted lover of

his stepmother, is regarded as a fine and singular monument throughout

the country. The Duchessa was curious to see it; on the day of her visit

the heat was overpowering in Parma, and up there, in that lofty

position, she found fresh air, which so delighted her that she stayed

for several hours. The officials made a point of throwing open to her

the rooms of the Farnese tower.

The Duchessa met on the platform of the great tower a poor Liberal

prisoner who had come to enjoy the half-hour's outing that was allowed

him every third day. On her return to Parma, not having yet acquired the

discretion necessary in an absolute court, she spoke of this man, who

had told her the whole history of his life. The Marchesa Raversi's

party seized hold of these utterances of the Duchessa and repeated them

broadcast, greatly hoping that they would shock the Prince. Indeed,

Ernesto IV was in the habit of repeating that the essential thing was to

impress the imagination. "_Perpetual_ is a big word," he used to say,

"and more terrible in Italy than elsewhere": accordingly, never in his

life had he granted a pardon. A week after her visit to the fortress the

Duchessa received a letter commuting a sentence, signed by the Prince

and by his Minister, with a blank left for the name. The prisoner whose

name she chose to write in this space would obtain the restoration of

his property, with permission to spend the rest of his days in America.

The Duchessa wrote the name of the man who had talked to her.

Unfortunately this man turned out to be half a rogue, a weak-kneed

creature; it was on the strength of his confessions that the famous

Ferrante Palla had been sentenced to death.

The unprecedented nature of this pardon set the seal upon Signora

Sanseverina's position. Conte Mosca was wild with delight; it was a

great day in his life and one that had a decisive influence on

Fabrizio's destiny. He, meanwhile, was still at Romagnano, near Novara,

going to confession, hunting, reading nothing, and paying court to a

lady of noble birth, as was laid down in his instructions. The Duchessa

was still a trifle shocked by this last essential. Another sign which

boded no good to the Conte was that, while she would speak to him with

the utmost frankness about everyone else, and would think aloud in his

presence, she never mentioned Fabrizio to him without first carefully

choosing her words.

"If you like," the Conte said to her one day, "I will write to that

charming brother you have on the Lake of Como, and I will soon force

that Marchese del Dongo, if I and my friends in a certain quarter apply

a little pressure, to ask for the pardon of your dear Fabrizio. If it be

true, as I have not the least doubt that it is, that Fabrizio is

somewhat superior to the young fellows who ride their English

thoroughbreds about the streets of Milan, what a life, at eighteen, to

be doing nothing with no prospect of ever having anything to do! If

heaven had endowed him with a real passion for anything in the world,

were it only for angling, I should respect it; but what is he to do at

Milan, even after he has obtained his pardon? He will get on a horse,

which he will have had sent to him from England, at a certain hour of

the day; at another, idleness will take him to his mistress, for whom he

will care less than he will for his horse. . . . But, if you say the

word, I will try to procure this sort of life for your nephew."

"I should like him to be an officer," said the Duchessa.

"Would you recommend a Sovereign to entrust a post which, at a given

date, may be of some importance to a young man who, in the first place,

is liable to enthusiasm, and, secondly, has shewn enthusiasm for

Napoleon to the extent of going to join him at Waterloo? Just think

where we should all be if Napoleon had won at Waterloo! We should have

no Liberals to be afraid of, it is true, but the Sovereigns of ancient

Houses would be able to keep their thrones only by marrying the

daughters of his Marshals. And so military life for Fabrizio would be

the life of a squirrel in a revolving cage: plenty of movement with no

progress. He would have the annoyance of seeing himself cut out by all

sorts of plebeian devotion. The essential quality in a young man of the

present day, that is to say for the next fifty years perhaps, so long as

we remain in a state of fear and religion has not been re-established,

is not to be liable to enthusiasm and not to shew any spirit.

"I have thought of one thing, but one that will begin by making you cry

out in protest, and will give me infinite trouble for many a day to

come: it is an act of folly which I am ready to commit for you. But tell

me, if you can, what folly would I not commit to win a smile?"

"Well?" said the Duchessa.

"Well, we have had as Archbishops of Parma three members of your family:

Ascanio del Dongo who wrote a book in sixteen-something, Fabrizio in

1699, and another Ascanio in 1740. If Fabrizio cares to enter the

prelacy, and to make himself conspicuous for virtues of the highest

order, I can make him a Bishop somewhere, and then Archbishop here,

provided that my influence lasts. The real objection is this: shall I

remain Minister for long enough to carry out this fine plan, which will

require several years? The Prince may die, he may have the bad taste to

dismiss me. But, after all, it is the only way open to me of securing

for Fabrizio something that is worthy of you."

They discussed the matter at length: the idea was highly repugnant to

the Duchessa.

"Prove to me again," she said to the Conte, "that every other career is

impossible for Fabrizio." The Conte proved it.

"You regret," he added, "the brilliant uniform; but as to that, I do not

know what to do."

After a month in which the Duchessa had asked to be allowed to think

things over, she yielded with a sigh to the sage views of the Minister.

"Either ride stiffly upon an English horse through the streets of some

big town," repeated the Conte, "or adopt a calling that is not

unbefitting his birth; I can see no middle course. Unfortunately, a

gentleman cannot become either a doctor or a barrister, and this age is

made for barristers.

"Always bear in mind, Signora," the Conte went on, "that you are giving

your nephew, on the streets of Milan, the lot enjoyed by the young men

of his age who pass for the most fortunate. His pardon once procured,

you will give him fifteen, twenty, thirty thousand francs; the amount

does not matter; neither you nor I make any pretence of saving money."

The Duchessa was susceptible to the idea of fame; she did not wish

Fabrizio to be simply a young man living on an allowance; she reverted

to her lover's plan.

"Observe," the Conte said to her, "that I do not pretend to turn

Fabrizio into an exemplary priest, like so many that you see. No, he is

a great gentleman, first and foremost; he can remain perfectly ignorant

if it seems good to him, and will none the less become Bishop and

Archbishop, if the Prince continues to regard me as a useful person.

"If your orders deign to transform my proposal into an immutable

decree," the Conte went on, "our _protégé_ must on no account be seen

in Parma living with modest means. His subsequent promotion will cause a

scandal if people have seen him here as an ordinary priest; he ought not

to appear in Parma until he has his _violet stockings_[10] and a

suitable establishment. Then everyone will assume that your nephew is

destined to be a Bishop, and nobody will be shocked.

"If you will take my advice, you will send Fabrizio to take his theology

and spend three years at Naples. During the vacations of the

Ecclesiastical Academy he can go if he likes to visit Paris and London,

but he must never shew his face in Parma." This sentence made the

Duchessa shudder.

She sent a courier to her nephew, asking him to meet her at Piacenza.

Need it be said that this courier was the bearer of all the means of

obtaining money and all the necessary passports?

Arriving first at Piacenza, Fabrizio hastened to meet the Duchessa, and

embraced her with transports of joy which made her dissolve in tears.

She was glad that the Conte was not present; since they had fallen in

love, it was the first time that she had experienced this sensation.

Fabrizio was profoundly touched, and then distressed by the plans which

the Duchessa had made for him; his hope had always been that, his affair

at Waterloo settled, he might end by becoming a soldier. One thing

struck the Duchessa, and still further increased the romantic opinion

that she had formed of her nephew; he refused absolutely to lead a

_caffè_-haunting existence in one of the big towns of Italy.

"Can't you see yourself on the _Corso_ of Florence or Naples," said the

Duchessa, "with thoroughbred English horses? For the evenings a

carriage, a charming apartment," and so forth. She dwelt with exquisite

relish on the details of this vulgar happiness, which she saw Fabrizio

thrust from him with disdain. "He is a hero," she thought.

"And after ten years of this agreeable life, what shall I have done?"

said Fabrizio; "what shall I be? A young man _of a certain age_, who

will have to move out of the way of the first good-looking boy who makes

his appearance in society, also mounted upon an English horse."

Fabrizio at first utterly rejected the idea of the Church. He spoke of

going to New York, of becoming an American citizen and a soldier of the

Republic.

"What a mistake you are making! You won't have any war, and you'll fall

back into the _caffè_ life, only without smartness, without music,

without love affairs," replied the Duchessa. "Believe me, for you just

as much as for myself, it would be a wretched existence there in

America." She explained to him the cult of the god _Dollar_, and the

respect that had to be shewn to the artisans in the street who by their

votes decided everything. They came back to the idea of the Church.

"Before you fly into a passion," the Duchessa said to him, "just try to

understand what the Conte is asking you to do; there is no question

whatever of your being a poor priest of more or less exemplary and

virtuous life, like Priore Blanès. Remember the example of your uncles,

the Archbishops of Parma; read over again the accounts of their lives in

the supplement to the Genealogy. First and foremost, a man with a name

like yours has to be a great gentleman, noble, generous, an upholder of

justice, destined from the first to find himself at the head of his

order . . . and in the whole of his life doing only one dishonourable

thing, and that a very useful one."

"So all my illusions are shattered," said Fabrizio, heaving a deep sigh;

"it is a cruel sacrifice! I admit, I had not taken into account this

horror of enthusiasm and spirit, even when wielded to their advantage,

which from now onwards is going to prevail amongst absolute monarchs."

_ITALIAN PRUDENCE_

"Remember that a proclamation, a caprice of the heart flings the

enthusiast into the bosom of the opposite party to the one he has served

all his life!"

"I an enthusiast!" repeated Fabrizio; "a strange accusation! I cannot

manage even to be in love!"

"What!" exclaimed the Duchessa.

"When I have the honour to pay my court to a beauty, even if she is of

good birth and sound religious principles, I cannot think about her

except when I see her."

This avowal made a strange impression upon the Duchessa.

"I ask for a month," Fabrizio went on, "in which to take leave of

Signora C----, of Novara, and, what will be more difficult still, of all

the castles I have been building in the air all my life. I shall write

to my mother, who will be so good as to come and see me at Belgirate, on

the Piedmontese shore of Lake Maggiore, and, in thirty-one days from

now, I shall be in Parma incognito."

"No, whatever you do!" cried the Duchessa. She did not wish Conte Mosca

to see her talking to Fabrizio.

The same pair met again at Piacenza. The Duchessa this time was highly

agitated: a storm had broken at court; the Marchesa Raversi's party was

on the eve of a triumph; it was on the cards that Conte Mosca might be

replaced by General Fabio Conti, the leader of what was called at Parma

the _Liberal Party_. Omitting only the name of the rival who was growing

in the Prince's favour, the Duchessa told Fabrizio everything. She

discussed afresh the chances of his future career, even with the

prospect of his losing the all-powerful influence of the Conte.

"I am going to spend three years in the Ecclesiastical Academy at

Naples," exclaimed Fabrizio; "but since I must be before all things a

young gentleman, and you do not oblige me to lead the life of a virtuous

seminarist, the prospect of this stay at Naples does not frighten me in

the least; the life there will be in every way as pleasant as life at

Romagnano; the best society of the neighbourhood was beginning to class

me as a Jacobin. In my exile I have discovered that I know nothing, not

even Latin, not even how to spell. I had planned to begin my education

over again at Novara; I shall willingly study theology at Naples; it is

a complicated science." The Duchessa was overjoyed. "If we are driven

out of Parma," she told him, "we shall come and visit you at Naples. But

since you agree, until further orders, to try for the violet stockings,

the Conte, who knows the Italy of to-day through and through, has given

me an idea to suggest to you. Believe or not, as you choose, what they

teach you, _but never raise any objection_. Imagine that they are teaching

you the rules of the game of whist; would you raise any objection to the

rules of whist? I have told the Conte that you do believe, and he is

delighted to hear it; it is useful in this world and in the next. But,

if you believe, do not fall into the vulgar habit of speaking with

horror of Voltaire, Diderot, Raynal and all those harebrained Frenchmen

who paved the way to the Dual Chamber. Their names should not be allowed

to pass your lips, but if you must mention them, speak of these

gentlemen with a calm irony: they are people who have long since been

refuted and whose attacks are no longer of any consequence. Believe

blindly everything that they tell you at the Academy. Bear in mind that

there are people who will make a careful note of your slightest

objections; they will forgive you a little amorous intrigue if it is

done in the proper way, but not a doubt: age stifles intrigue but

encourages doubt. Act on this principle at the tribunal of penitence.

You shall have a letter of recommendation to a Bishop who is factotum to

the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples: to him alone you should admit your

escapade in France and your presence on the 18th of June in the

neighbourhood of Waterloo. Even then, cut it as short as possible,

confess it only so that they cannot reproach you with having kept it

secret. You were so young at the time!

_THE COURT_

"The second idea which the Conte sends you is this: if there should

occur to you a brilliant argument, a triumphant retort that will change

the course of the conversation, do not give in to the temptation to

shine; remain silent: people of any discernment will see your cleverness

in your eyes. It will be time enough to be witty when you are a Bishop."

Fabrizio began his life at Naples with an unpretentious carriage and

four servants, good Milanese, whom his aunt had sent him. After a year

of study, no one said of him that he was a man of parts: people looked

upon him as a great nobleman, of a studious bent, extremely generous,

but something of a libertine.

That year, amusing enough for Fabrizio, was terrible for the Duchessa.

The Conte was three or four times within an inch of ruin; the Prince,

more timorous than ever, because he was ill that year, believed that by

dismissing him he could free himself from the odium of the executions

carried out before the Conte had entered his service. Rassi was the

cherished favourite who must at all costs be retained. The Conte's

perils won him the passionate attachment of the Duchessa; she gave no

more thought to Fabrizio. To lend colour to their possible retirement,

it appeared that the air of Parma, which was indeed a trifle damp as it

is everywhere in Lombardy, did not at all agree with her. Finally, after

intervals of disgrace which went so far as to make the Conte, though

Prime Minister, spend sometimes twenty whole days without seeing his

master privately, Mosca won; he secured the appointment of General Fabio

Conti, the so-called Liberal, as governor of the citadel in which were

imprisoned the Liberals condemned by Rassi. "If Conti shows any leniency

towards his prisoners," Mosca observed to his lady, "he will be

disgraced as a Jacobin whose political theories have made him forget his

duty as a general; if he shows himself stern and pitiless, and that, to

my mind, is the direction in which he will tend, he ceases to be the

leader of his own party and alienates all the families that have a

relative in the citadel. This poor man has learned how to assume an air

of awed respect on the approach of the Prince; if necessary, he changes

his clothes four times a day; he can discuss a question of etiquette,

but his is not a head capable of following the difficult path by which

alone he can save himself from destruction; and in any case, I am

there."

The day after the appointment of General Fabio Conti, which brought the

ministerial crisis to an end, it was announced that Parma was to have an

ultra-monarchist newspaper.

"What feuds the paper will create!" said the Duchessa.

"This paper, the idea of which is perhaps my masterpiece," replied the

Conte with a smile, "I shall gradually and quite against my will allow

to pass into the hands of the ultra-rabid section. I have attached some

good salaries to the editorial posts. People are coming from all

quarters to beg for employment on it; the excitement will help us

through the next month or two, and people will forget the danger I have

been in. Those seriously minded gentlemen P---- and D---- are already on

the list."

"But this paper will be quite revoltingly absurd."

"I am reckoning on that," replied the Conte. "The Prince will read it

every morning and admire the doctrines taught by myself as its founder.

As to the details, he will approve or be shocked; of the hours which he

devotes every day to work, two will be taken up in this way. The paper

will get itself into trouble, but when the serious complaints begin to

come in, in eight or ten months' time, it will be entirely in the hands

of the ultra-rabids. It will be this party, which is annoying me, that

will have to answer; as for me, I shall raise objections to the paper;

but after all I greatly prefer a hundred absurdities to one hanging. Who

remembers an absurdity two years after the publication of the official

gazette! It is better than having the sons and family of the hanged man

vowing a hatred which will last as long as I shall and may perhaps

shorten my life."

The Duchessa, always passionately interested in something, always

active, never idle, had more spirit than the whole court of Parma put

together; but she lacked the patience and impassivity necessary for

success in intrigue. However, she had managed to follow with passionate

excitement the interests of the various groups, she was beginning even

to establish a certain personal reputation with the Prince.

Clara-Paolina, the Princess Consort, surrounded with honours but a

prisoner to the most antiquated etiquette, looked upon herself as the

unhappiest of women. The Duchessa Sanseverina paid her various

attentions and tried to prove to her that she was by no means so unhappy

as she supposed. It should be explained that the Prince saw his wife

only at dinner: this meal lasted for thirty minutes, and the Prince

would spend whole weeks without saying a word to Clara-Paolina. Signora

Sanseverina attempted to change all this; she amused the Prince, all the

more as she had managed to retain her independence intact. Had she

wished to do so, she could not have succeeded in never hurting any of

the fools who swarmed about this court. It was this utter inadaptability

on her part that led to her being execrated by the common run of

courtiers, all Conti or Marchesi, with an average income of 5,000 lire.

She realised this disadvantage after the first few days, and devoted

herself exclusively to pleasing the Sovereign and his Consort, the

latter of whom was in absolute control of the Crown Prince. The Duchessa

knew how to amuse the Sovereign, and profited by the extreme attention

he paid to her lightest word to put in some shrewd thrusts at the

courtiers who hated her. After the foolish actions that Rassi had made

him commit, and for foolishness that sheds blood there is no reparation,

the Prince was sometimes afraid and was often bored, which had brought

him to a state of morbid envy; he felt that he was deriving little

amusement from life, and grew sombre when he saw other people amused;

the sight of happiness made him furious. "We must keep our love secret,"

she told her admirer, and gave the Prince to understand that she was

only very moderately attached to the Conte, who for that matter was so

thoroughly deserving of esteem.

This discovery had given His Highness a happy day. From time to time,

the Duchessa let fall a few words about the plan she had in her mind of

taking a few months' holiday every year, to be spent in seeing Italy,

which she did not know at all; she would visit Naples, Florence, Rome.

Now nothing in the world was more capable of distressing the Prince than

an apparent desertion of this sort; it was one of his most pronounced

weaknesses, any action that might be interpreted as showing contempt for

his capital city pierced him to the heart. He felt that he had no way of

holding Signora Sanseverina, and Signora Sanseverina was by far the most

brilliant woman in Parma. A thing without parallel in the lazy Italian

character, people used to drive in from the surrounding country to

attend her _Thursdays_; they were regular festivals; almost every week

the Duchessa had something new and sensational to present. The Prince

was dying to see one of these Thursdays for himself; but how was it to

be managed? Go to the house of a private citizen! That was a thing that

neither his father nor he had ever done in their lives!

There came a certain Thursday of cold wind and rain; all through the

evening the Prince heard carriages rattling over the pavement of the

piazza outside the Palace, on their way to Signora Sanseverina's. He

moved petulantly in his chair: other people were amusing themselves, and

he, their sovereign Prince, their absolute master, who ought to find

more amusement than anyone in the world, he was tasting the fruit of

boredom! He rang for his aide-de-camp: he was obliged to wait until a

dozen trustworthy men had been posted in the street that led from the

Royal Palace to the _palazzo_ Sanseverina. Finally, after an hour that

seemed to the Prince an age, during which he had been minded a score of

times to brave the assassins' daggers and to go boldly out without any

precaution, he appeared in the first of Signora Sanseverina's

drawing-rooms. A thunderbolt might have fallen upon the carpet and not

produced so much surprise. In the twinkling of an eye, and as the Prince

advanced through them, these gay and noisy rooms were hushed to a

stupefied silence; every eye, fixed on the Prince, was strained with

attention. The courtiers appeared disconcerted; the Duchessa alone

shewed no sign of surprise. When finally her guests had recovered

sufficient strength to speak, the great preoccupation of all present was

to decide the important question: had the Duchessa been warned of this

visit, or had she like everyone else been taken by surprise?

The Prince was amused, and the reader may now judge of the utterly

impulsive character of the Duchessa, and of the boundless power which

vague ideas of departure, adroitly disseminated, had enabled her to

assume.

As she went to the door with the Prince, who was making her the

prettiest speeches, an odd idea came to her which she ventured to put

into words quite simply, and as though it were the most natural thing in

the world.

"If Your Serene Highness would address to the Princess three or four of

these charming utterances which he lavishes on me, he could be far more

certain of giving me pleasure than by telling me that I am pretty. I

mean that I would not for anything in the world have the Princess look

with an unfriendly eye on the signal mark of his favour with which His

Highness has honoured me this evening."

The Prince looked fixedly at her and replied in a dry tone:

"I was under the impression that I was my own master and could go where

I pleased."

The Duchessa blushed.

"I wished only," she explained, instantly recovering herself, "not to

expose His Highness to the risk of a bootless errand, for this Thursday

will be the last; I am going for a few days to Bologna or Florence."

When she reappeared in the rooms, everyone imagined her to be at the

height of favour, whereas she had just taken a risk upon which, in the

memory of man, no one had ever ventured. She made a sign to the Conte,

who rose from the whist-table and followed her into a little room that

was lighted but empty.

"You have done a very bold thing," he informed her; "I should not have

advised it myself, but when hearts are really inflamed," he added with a

smile, "happiness enhances love, and if you leave to-morrow morning, I

shall follow you to-morrow night. I shall be detained here only by that

burden of a Ministry of Finance which I was stupid enough to take on my

shoulders; but in four hours of hard work, one can hand over a good many

accounts. Let us go back, dear friend, and play at ministerial fatuity

with all freedom and without reserve; it may be the last performance

that we shall give in this town. If he thinks he is being defied, the

man is capable of anything; he will call it _making an example_. When

these people have gone, we can decide on a way of barricading you for

to-night; the best plan perhaps would be to set off without delay for

your house at Sacca, by the Po, which has the advantage of being within

half an hour of Austrian territory."

For the Duchessa's love and self-esteem this was an exquisite moment;

she looked at the Conte, and her eyes brimmed with tears. So powerful a

Minister, surrounded by this swarm of courtiers who loaded him with

homage equal to that which they paid to the Prince himself, to leave

everything for her sake, and with such unconcern!

When she returned to the drawing-room she was beside herself with joy.

Everyone bowed down before her.

"How prosperity has changed the Duchessa!" was murmured everywhere by

the courtiers, "one would hardly recognise her. So that Roman spirit, so

superior to everything in the world, does after all, deign to appreciate

the extraordinary favour that has just been conferred upon her by the

Sovereign!"

Towards the end of the evening the Conte came to her: "I must tell you

the latest news." Immediately the people who happened to be standing

near the Duchessa withdrew.

"The Prince, on his return to the Palace," the Conte went on, "had

himself announced at the door of his wife's room. Imagine the surprise!

'I have come to tell you,' he said to her, 'about a really most

delightful evening I have spent at the Sanseverina's. It was she who

asked me to give you a full description of the way in which she has

decorated that grimy old _palazzo_.' Then the Prince took a seat and

went into a description of each of your rooms in turn.

"He spent more than twenty-five minutes with his wife, who was in tears

of joy; for all her intelligence, she could not think of anything to

keep the conversation going in the light tone which His Highness was

pleased to impart to it."

This Prince was by no means a wicked man, whatever the Liberals of Italy

might say of him. As a matter of fact, he had cast a good number of them

into prison, but that was from fear, and he used to repeat now and then,

as though to console himself for certain unpleasant memories: "It is

better to kill the devil than to let the devil kill you." The day after

the party we have been describing, he was supremely happy; he had done

two good actions: he had gone to the _Thursday_, and he had talked to

his wife. At dinner, he addressed her again; in a word, this _Thursday_

at Signora Sanseverina's brought about a domestic revolution with which

the whole of Parma rang; the Raversi was in consternation, and the

Duchessa doubly delighted: she had contrived to be of use to her lover,

and had found him more in love with her than ever.

"All this owing to a thoroughly rash idea which came into my mind!" she

said to the Conte. "I should be more free, no doubt, in Rome or Naples,

but should I find so fascinating a game to play there? No, indeed, my

dear Conte, and you provide me with all my joy in life."

[Footnote 10: In Italy, young men with influence or brains become

_Monsignori_ and _prelati_, which does not mean bishop; they then wear

violet stockings. A man need not take any vows to become _Monsignore_;

he can discard his violet stockings and marry.]